


Phoenix Blue

by AraceliL



Series: Lungs [2]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Colors, F/M, Friendship, Loss, Loyalty Mission, Romance, Shakarian - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-07
Updated: 2015-11-07
Packaged: 2018-04-30 10:54:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5161109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AraceliL/pseuds/AraceliL
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shepard's death affected everybody in her crew, but they dealt with it in different ways. Garrus began seeing red, and took justice into his own hands, becoming Archangel, losing who he used to be in the process. When Shepard meets him again, she's terrified to realize the man she saves from Omega isn't Garrus. She's determined to bring back her best friend, to bring blue back to his eyes, even if it means throwing herself in front of his twitching finger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Phoenix Blue

They called him an archangel, but she didn’t believe he was one.

She called him a phoenix, rising from the ashes, from the flames that broke his body with dazzling new wings.

They called him an archangel, but he didn’t believe he was one.

He called himself a murderer, a failure. A brother without a family. An angel without a choir. A general without an army. Alone in the flames.

The only thing he was was a fallen angel.

She had found him again, after so long, after a slow smolder had built up and burnt up the ground around his feet. She had finally found him, arrived like a miracle, against all odds. They called him Archangel, but she was the angel, swooping in with bright blue wings to save him yet again.

Her colors were supposed to be red. Red like her fire hair, red like the proud stripe down her arm, red like the blood trickling around unfamiliar angry red scars on her skin. She was supposed to be red, to be drenched in flames and fury like the angel of death that she was.

But she was blue when she found him. He was supposed to be blue. Blue was his armor, the tribal marks along his face plates, the eyes staring so intensely into hers she thought he might actually kill her too. Blue was the color of specks of his blood from a lucky shot by a merc who didn’t have such a lucky time after that. He was supposed to be blue.

But she was blue when she found him. Glowing like an angel, a sight too familiar to be real. A sight too beautiful to be real. Shimmering with a holy, reverent light, even when he reacted on instinct and sent a shot into a blue shield. Blue in the sadness, the loneliness he could read on her face, even as she commanded her subordinates with a too familiar ease. Blue as she knelt in his blood, blue in the corners of his eyes as he took (what should have been) his last breath.

He was red when she found him. Red in a barely controlled rage bubbling just below the surface of his usually blue self. Red were his eyes, red was the slick crack of his rifle as he killed more, more, more. Red was the recognition in his eyes as he took her in, questioning, uncomprehending. He was burning up, he was on fire, drowning in flames of hatred and rage, surrounded by the fallen, by his mistakes, by shadows swallowing him whole. He was red in the heat, and she could only stare in awe as the last of his familiar, warm blue was melted away.

She lost her heart that day, lost it in the fire with him.

Out of Omega, out of the worst of the flames, he seemed...better. Outwardly, he was fine. Happy to be back. Ready to serve.

But on the inside, he was scorched. They both knew none of that was true. He was hurt, fatally. He was dying before her eyes, and she couldn’t stop it. Like a wounded animal, he protected his pride when he was too bruised to fight. Even her words, normally a lifeline for him to look up to, fell flat. _Two years for him, a few weeks for me._ He was no longer the blue, earnest officer obsessed with justice and morality. Now, he was red. Anger brimmed from every pore, his shots a little too quick, a little too reflexive on ground missions with her. He was reckless, running ahead when she commanded him back. She was forced to leave him behind instead, blue with fear when she had confronted him.

_I can’t bring you if you don’t listen to me. I am your commanding officer and I expect you to fall in line. If you don’t follow orders don’t expect to come with._

He had stared at her, eyes hard, eyes red. She almost broke. Almost dropped to her knees, _Garrus, please, please. Please come back to me. Please. Who are you?I need you back._

_Okay. I understand,_ had been his answer, easy, respectful. Pulling rank had worked, but he stopped volunteering to come with her, forcing her hand.

Blue seemed to shroud her everywhere she went. The joy of finding him again, of seeing him survive against all odds had flushed away almost instantly when she learned the man she had pulled off Omega was not Garrus. This was Archangel, angry, bloodthirsty, vengeful. The world was shades of red, pushing away everyone and everything. Oh, they would speak, or she would try to understand, to get _it_ out of him, and he would play along, but they both knew he was playing and it wasn’t genuine. What was genuine? Even she had been rebuilt. She wasn’t Shepard, and he wasn’t Vakarian. No, he was Archangel, and she had stopped visiting the main battery once she realized Garrus had perished in the flames.

Then for once, he sought her out. Blue anxiety threatened to steal her nerve, but she reminded herself strictly that she was his commanding officer, and he was Garrus. She knew Garrus.

_Or who he used to be. He’s not Garrus anymore._

Throughout the mission to find his archdemon, fear slowly crept up her neck. She watched his brutality with a twist of her stomach, with a very frightening feeling of not being able to control this. God, Garrus really is gone, isn’t he? She tried to talk to him...but how many times had she tried before this? If she thought his red, silent-but-controlled anger had been troubling on the ship, it was infinitesimal compared to the loose rage he was whipping now. She could practically see his anger in pulsing ruby tendrils around him, a blasphemous echo of the blue biotics teasing her body. His voice, normally polite and respectful, even if occasionally at an effort, held nothing but contempt for her attempts now. His voice, normally a source of comfort and trust, now rough and disturbingly dark in his hunt. Shivers raced down her spine like a cold trickle of water, and with every passing moment she tried not to mourn the man he used to be.

Garrus on the SR-1, warming slowly to her questions, to her routine. Becoming a member of her crew, starting as an eager stranger, so alien to her, almost untrustworthy, to a brother in arms, a partner, _a friend_. She remembered gradually learning his facial expressions, the subvocals she could hear, and wishing desperately she could hear them all. Seeing his mandibles spread wide in a turian grin when she emerged from the rubble after defeating Sovereign. Small acts of camaraderie that built upon themselves: a handshake after a mission; teaching him how to high-five; a three-fingered hand on her shoulder after Virmire; a rib-bruising hug after all was said and done and they were back on the Normandy.

_It’s an honor to know you, Commander._

_Vakarian, I told you to call me Shepard. If you try to pretend we’re not friends after all this bullshit, I’m kicking your ass back to C-Sec with a cherry on top._

_Duly noted, Shepard_ was his snarky reply, a turian smirk on that alien face. _Also, that threat would have a much better impact if I knew what a cherry was._

A tear fell as the skycar soared along the Citadel’s vast skyways.

If he noticed, he didn’t say anything, but he did, and the red was suddenly splotched with blue. _She doesn’t understand. How could she? I hope she never has to._

Shame flooded through him, and suddenly his own breathing felt too loud in the silence of the car. She hadn’t said anything since Harkin had arranged the meeting, and he didn’t expect her to; almost didn’t want her to. Still, something ached where his heart used to be. Had she really given up? Commander Shepard, savior of the Citadel, had given up on him?

_Who am I anymore?_

Finally, after what felt like years and years of a long, stretching silence, they arrived, and with curt, taut words he explained his plan for revenge. A curt, taut nod was all he received in turn. She didn’t even look at him. He saw red.

_I’m not losing you like this, Garrus. I. Fucking. Refuse._

She was tired of being blue, of being afraid of Archangel. Her Garrus was in there somewhere, waiting to rise from the ashes, she knew it. It was in the way he had high-fived her after she told him about the upgrade of the Thannix Cannon, in the way he looked at her when he thought she had fallen asleep at the mess yet again, in the way he haltingly had tried to touch her when she visited him in the main battery for the first time. He was there, and she was exhausted of acting like a lost sheep. She was the shepherd, not the sheep, and it was time for her to lead.

_I’m not losing you like this. I...I can’t._

It was those memories that convinced her that he wouldn’t shoot her in the head as she put herself between Archangel and Archdemon. Still, she trembled with fear, despite having thrown herself to face certain death before; this was different. This was her partner’s, best friend’s, _her Garrus’s_ crosshairs at the nape of her neck. Archangel had his twitching red finger on the trigger but the sight of her made Garrus look through the scope.

She finally found her voice then, sending prayers up to Thane’s gods that her words were right, that this act of defiance was enough to show him the truth. She spoke with a tinge of red, of the fire and passion that had made him follow her to hell in the first place, but it was conviction that gave her strength, not fury.

Garrus faltered. His beautiful blue angel, here to save him yet again, glowing blue in his sights. She was a miracle on Omega and she was a miracle now. It all rushed up to meet him, stemming from the blue in his scope, flowing like a river from mouth that was Shepard. It wasn’t Sidonis that Archangel had lined up in the crosshairs: it was Garrus, it was who he used to be. The death of his old self stared back at him with empty eyes, empty, red eyes, and with a hitch of breath he met Shepard’s tribal blue eyes and gave her his consent.

His lost his heart then, lost it in the blue river between them.

When she met him back at the car she thought he would curse at her, if he even spoke to her, and the red courage she had felt faded into a dull blue worry as he slowly approached her.

They called him Archangel but she was his goddess, guiding him when he was too blind to see. She knew his heart, and suddenly the world wasn’t shades of red, or black and white; it was the palette that was Shepard, pink lips worried by white teeth, orange hair moving softly against tan and brown-speckled skin, purple armor ( _her favorite color_ ) glinting under market signs, gold and gray gun protection at her hip. And so much blue, her eyes brighter than the river between them.

He hugged her then, too stunned to stop his body from doing what it had longed to do since she had returned to him. He pulled her flush against him, armor and all, and he held her tight under the neon lights of the market, green and pink and white. She felt sturdy against  him and so damn _real_ he let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. She was _alive_. This wasn’t some cruelly elaborate trick played by his dying mind as he died alongside his squad on Omega. It was surreal, holding a ghost, an angel, _Shepard_ , and the image of his rifle trained on her made him shake. Her presence made him shake, so solid and warm, and her words made him shake, and the human hand on his scarred mandible made him shake.

“Shepard,” he started, and he thanked the Spirits that she couldn’t hear everything his voice was really conveying. As it was, he thought she might know anyway, as she pulled back, hand slipping to his neck, and before he knew it she had pulled his forehead down to meet hers.

It was inappropriate to be touching a subordinate in this way, she knew, especially in public and in full armor, but the blue radiating out of Garrus had pushed her emotions to the limit, so purely overjoyed at having him back. They called him an archangel, but he was a phoenix, rising from the flames in an breathtaking show of resilience and magnificent blue wings. In the intimacy of being as close as they were, she felt another tear spill, but she didn’t hide it, and she didn’t pull away when his finger brushed it away with more gentleness than she realized he was capable of. He was a phoenix, back from the dead to reemerge even more majestic than before. Red fire had made him stronger, and being forged from the flames only made his blue wings more glorious.

They called him Archangel, but she called him Garrus.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please comment or leave kudos if you enjoyed! 'Ceremonials' is my collection of Florence + the Machine inspired Mass Effect stories, and this is the second one I've written. The first one is called Queen of Peace, and this one was inspired by No Light, No Light. Took me forever to come up with a title that wasn't that, because I thought the phoenix metaphor was so (overused) central to the story, and wanted to include it in the title. This Shep is not the same as in the other story; That story will hopefully be part of a ME2 retelling from her view; this is just a general Shakarian fic, because damn it Shakarian feels. Again, thanks for reading!


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